Was it you, thus buffeted as you lie here in a heap? Was
it you, thus baptized unto Death, with these flying impurities now flung
upon your face? Why not speak, Father? Soaking into this filthy ground
as you lie here, is your own shape. Did you never see such a shape
soaked into your boat? Speak, Father. Speak to us, the winds, the only
listeners left you!

'Now see,' said Mr Inspector, after mature deliberation: kneeling on one
knee beside the body, when they had stood looking down on the drowned
man, as he had many a time looked down on many another man: 'the way of
it was this. Of course you gentlemen hardly failed to observe that he
was towing by the neck and arms.'

They had helped to release the rope, and of course not.

'And you will have observed before, and you will observe now, that this
knot, which was drawn chock-tight round his neck by the strain of his
own arms, is a slip-knot': holding it up for demonstration.

Plain enough.

'Likewise you will have observed how he had run the other end of this
rope to his boat.'

It had the curves and indentations in it still, where it had been twined
and bound.

'Now see,' said Mr Inspector, 'see how it works round upon him. It's a
wild tempestuous evening when this man that was,' stooping to wipe
some hailstones out of his hair with an end of his own drowned jacket,
'--there! Now he's more like himself; though he's badly bruised,--when
this man that was, rows out upon the river on his usual lay. He carries
with him this coil of rope. He always carries with him this coil of
rope. It's as well known to me as he was himself. Sometimes it lay in
the bottom of his boat. Sometimes he hung it loose round his neck.
He was a light-dresser was this man;--you see?' lifting the loose
neckerchief over his breast, and taking the opportunity of wiping the
dead lips with it--'and when it was wet, or freezing, or blew cold, he
would hang this coil of line round his neck. Last evening he does this.
Worse for him! He dodges about in his boat, does this man, till he gets
chilled. His hands,' taking up one of them, which dropped like a leaden
weight, 'get numbed. He sees some object that's in his way of business,
floating. He makes ready to secure that object. He unwinds the end of
his coil that he wants to take some turns on in his boat, and he takes
turns enough on it to secure that it shan't run out. He makes it too
secure, as it happens. He is a little longer about this than u